Soil salinity is a major environmental constraint to crop productivity worldwide. The “biological” approach to this problem focuses on the management, exploitation, or development of plants able to thrive on salt‐affected soils. This chapter reviews strategies by which plants can be enabled to grow on saline soils. The first strategy is to prime seeds before planting by treating them with inorganic or organic chemicals and/or with high or low temperatures. The second strategy involves exogenous application of organic chemicals, such as glycine betaine, proline, or plant growth regulators, or inorganic chemicals to plants under salinity stress. Considerable improvements in growth and yield have been reported in a number of crops using these approaches. The third strategy is to employ selection and breeding. Major efforts have been made to develop salt‐tolerant lines or cultivars of crops using conventional plant breeding. However, the complexity of the tolerance mechanisms, lack of selection criteria, and variation in responses of plants at different developmental stages have resulted in only limited success. The emphases for developing salt‐tolerant lines/cultivars are now on marker‐assisted breeding and genetic transformation. The development of salt‐tolerant transgenic plants is still at an early stage but may become increasingly more effective as better knowledge of the complex mechanisms involved in plant salt tolerance is acquired. Furthermore, the rapid expansion in knowledge on genomics and proteomics will undoubtedly accelerate the transgenic and molecular breeding approaches However, to date, there are few conclusive reports indicating successful performance of transgenic cultivars under natural stressful environments.

Some Prospective Strategies for Improving Crop Salt Tolerance

The combined effects of gibberellic acid and salinity on some antioxidant enzyme activities, plant growth parameters and nutritional status in maize plants

Gibberellic acid mediated induction of salt tolerance in wheat plants: Growth, ionic partitioning, photosynthesis, yield and hormonal homeostasis

Gibberellins (GAs) are involved in regulation of many aspects during plant development. To investigate the impact of altered GA levels on plant growth and metabolism, transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants have been engineered to express either a GA20-oxidase (AtGA20-ox) or a GA2-oxidase (AtGA2-ox) gene from Arabidopsis under control of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter. Resulting plants were characterized by elongated or stunted shoot growth, respectively, indicating changes in the content of bioactive GAs. In accordance with the effect on plant growth, biomass production was increased or decreased in AtGA20-ox or AtGA2-ox plants, respectively, and was found to be positively correlated with the rate of photosynthesis as determined at the whole plant level. Differences in dry matter accumulation were most likely due to changes in lignin deposition as indicated by histochemical staining and quantitative measurements. Altered lignification of transgenic plants was paralleled by up- or down-regulation of the expression of lignin biosynthetic genes. Short-term GA3 feeding of excised petioles induced lignin formation in the absence of a transcriptional activation of pathway-specific genes. Thus, short-term GA treatment mediates lignin deposition most likely by polymerization of preformed monomers, whereas long-term effects on lignification involve elevated production of precursors by transcriptional stimulation of the biosynthetic pathway. Interestingly, analysis of stem cross sections revealed a differential effect of GA on the formation of xylem and pith cells. The number of lignified vessels was increased in AtGA20-ox plants pointing to a stimulation of xylem formation while the number of pith cells declined indicating a negative regulation.

Impact of Altered Gibberellin Metabolism on Biomass Accumulation, Lignin Biosynthesis, and Photosynthesis in Transgenic Tobacco Plants

We studied the role of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) in alleviating NaCl-induced salt stress on soybean growth and development in hydroponics medium. Soybean seedlings were exposed to 60 mM NaCl stress for 2 weeks, 24 h after the application of 20 and 30 µM MeJA. NaCl stress induced a significant reduction in plant growth, endogenous bioactive gibberellin (GA4), photosynthesis and transpiration rate, while a marked increase in the endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) and proline contents were recorded. MeJA application greatly mitigated the adverse effects of NaCl on soybean growth and endogenous hormones. MeJA significantly increased ABA levels, while the endogenous amount of GA4 was reduced by the application of NaCl. Our study revealed that MeJA counteracted the negative effects of NaCl stress on plant growth, chlorophyll content, leaf photosynthetic rate, leaf transpiration rate, and proline content.

Methyl jasmonate alleviated salinity stress in soybean

A sand culture experiment assessed whether gibberellic acid(GA3) could alleviate the adverse effects of salt stress on thegrowth, ion accumulation and photosynthetic capacity of two spring wheatcultivars, Barani-83 (salt sensitive) and SARC-I (salt tolerant).Three-week-oldplants of both cultivars were exposed to 0, 100 and 200 molm−3 NaCl in Hoagland's nutrient solution. Threeweeks after the initiation of salt treatments, half of the plants of eachcultivar were sprayed overall with 100 mg L−1GA3 solution. Plants were harvested 3 weeks after theapplication of GA3. Fresh and dry weights of shoots and roots, plantheight and leaf area were decreased with increasing supply of salt, butgibberellic acid treatment caused a significant ameliorative effect on both thecultivars with respect to these growth attributes. However, GA3caused no significant change in grain yields but increased grain size in boththe cultivars. Saline growth medium caused a marked increase in theconcentrations of Na+ and Cl− in shoots androots of both the lines. However, with the application of GA3accumulation of Na+ and Cl− was enhanced inboth shoots and roots of both wheat lines, but more ions accumulated in saltsensitive Barani-83 than in salt tolerant SARC-1. Net CO2assimilation rate (A) of both wheat lines decreased consistently withincreasingsupply of NaCl, but application of GA3 alleviated the effect of saltstress on this variable in both the cultivars. However, the ameliorative effectof the hormone was more pronounced in Barani-83 than in SARC-1. Althoughwater-use efficiency (A/E = CO2assimilation/transpiration) and intrinsic water use efficiency(A/gs = CO2 assimilation/stomatalconductance) decreased significantly with increasing salt concentration of thegrowth medium in both the cultivars, GA3 was more effective inenhancing both the water-use attributes in Barani-83 than in SARC-1. Overall,GA3 treatment stimulated the vegetative growth of both cultivars ofwheat under salt stress, but it caused a slight reduction in grain yield.GA3 treatment enhanced the accumulation of Na+ andCl− in both shoots and roots of wheat plants under saltstress.It also caused a significant increase in photosynthetic capacity in both linesat the vegetative stage under both saline and non-saline media.

Interactive effects of gibberellic acid (GA3) and salt stress on growth, ion accumulation and photosynthetic capacity of two spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars differing in salt tolerance

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Interactive effects of gibberellic acid (GA3) and salt stress on growth, ion accumulation and photosynthetic capacity of two spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars differing in salt tolerance